MLA 9th edition
How to cite a journal article in MLA 9th edition
Journal articles carry the most metadata of any source — volume, issue, page range, and a DOI — and each style orders and punctuates them differently.
THE FORMAT
A journal article in MLA, at a glance
Author Last, First. “Title of the Article.” Journal Name, vol. #, no. #, Year, pp. xx–xx, https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx.
Okonkwo, Adaeze R., and Marisol Villalobos. “Working Memory Load and Second-Language Reading Fluency.” Journal of Applied Psycholinguistics, vol. 44, no. 3, 2021, pp. 218–36, https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000912.
(Okonkwo and Villalobos 223)
In prose: Okonkwo and Villalobos found that fluency collapsed past four items (223).
Okonkwo, Adaeze R., et al. “Working Memory Load and Second-Language Reading Fluency.” Journal of Applied Psycholinguistics, vol. 44, no. 3, 2021, pp. 218–36, https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000912.
In text: (Okonkwo et al. 223)
Copyeditor formats APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE automatically — cite a source once and the works cited builds itself. See how citations work .
BEFORE YOU FORMAT
What MLA needs from a journal article
Elements to collect
- All author names, in the order printed on the article
- Year of publication
- Article title
- Journal name (in full, not the abbreviation, unless the style asks for it)
- Volume and issue number
- Page range
- DOI, or a stable URL when there is no DOI
Rules specific to this entry
- Volume and issue are lowercase abbreviations separated by commas: vol. 44, no. 3. MLA gives only the year, with no month or season unless the journal has no volume number.
- The second number in a page range is shortened once it runs to three digits or more — pp. 218–36, not pp. 218–236. Keep both numbers in full when shortening would be ambiguous, as in pp. 296–301.
- Use pp. for a range and p. for a single page in the Works Cited entry, but never in the parenthetical, where the number stands bare.
- A DOI keeps its https://doi.org/ prefix and is preferred over a URL. If you reached the article through a database, name the database in italics as a second container before the DOI.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element MLA needs for a journal article: All author names, in the order printed on the article; Year of publication; Article title; Journal name (in full, not the abbreviation, unless the style asks for it).
Build the works cited entry
Arrange those details in the MLA order: Author Last, First. “Title of the Article.” Journal Name, vol. #, no. #, Year, pp. xx–xx, https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx.
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Okonkwo and Villalobos 223) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Okonkwo and Villalobos found that fluency collapsed past four items (223)..
Check it against the exceptions
Volume and issue are lowercase abbreviations separated by commas: vol. 44, no. 3. MLA gives only the year, with no month or season unless the journal has no volume number.
MLA RULES
The conventions behind every MLA entry
MLA Handbook (9th ed.) is the authority. Where a journal or department publishes its own house rules, those win — check your submission guidelines before the works cited is final.
The rules that apply across every source — author order, capitalization, how the works cited is sorted, and where MLA entries most often go wrong — are collected on the MLA 9th edition guide.
The same journal article in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about MLA and journal articles
What if the journal article has no author?
Move the title into the author position and alphabetize by the first significant word of that title — ignoring an initial “A”, “An” or “The”. In the text, use a shortened form of the title where the author name would go.
What do I need before I can cite a journal article?
All author names, in the order printed on the article, Year of publication, Article title, and the rest of the elements listed above. Journal articles carry the most metadata of any source — volume, issue, page range, and a DOI — and each style orders and punctuates them differently.
Is there anything unusual about a journal article in MLA?
Volume and issue are lowercase abbreviations separated by commas: vol. 44, no. 3. MLA gives only the year, with no month or season unless the journal has no volume number.
What else catches people out here?
The second number in a page range is shortened once it runs to three digits or more — pp. 218–36, not pp. 218–236. Keep both numbers in full when shortening would be ambiguous, as in pp. 296–301.
Can I reformat this journal article in another style later?
By hand, you would retype the entry — the element order, punctuation and italics all differ between styles. In Copyeditor, sources are stored as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole reference list at once.
Cite it once
and never reformat it again
Copyeditor keeps sources as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole works cited at once.
